The Top 10 Highlights from Frieze London 2025

Every October, London’s Regent’s Park undergoes a spectacular transformation. Beneath two sprawling, custom-built marquees, hundreds of the world’s top galleries convene for Frieze and Frieze Masters, offering the very best of the art world. The VIP preview day took place on Wednesday, October 15, and amid the crisp orange and yellow fall foliage, an air of anticipation settled over attendees as the ubiquitous long queues began to form at the entrance, creating a scene of palpable excitement. Inside, the mood was high energy—a sensation reflected across the city this week as a slew of dynamic exhibitions at galleries and museums, as well as some new foundations, opened. This early vigor quickly translated into significant and early sales, setting a promising rhythm for the day. 

This year, there were more than 280 exhibitors between Frieze London, which presents cutting-edge contemporary art, and Frieze Masters—a 15-minute walk through the park—which shines a light on art historical works. And while fairs come at a time of economic uncertainty and political instability in the UK and beyond, Frieze seemed to offer a sense of defiant optimism. Early in the day, many exhibitors confirmed reports of intense collector interest across all price points, with major sales often moving with surprising swiftness, proving that top-quality masterworks and essential acquisitions remain largely unaffected by external market uncertainty.

A key success noted by exhibitors as well as collectors was the return of the revamped floor plan. This layout strategically positions the mega-galleries toward the back of two long aisles, ensuring collectors move through the spaces of the smaller and midsize exhibitors first, allowing fresh and unexpected discoveries to be made. 

This year, there were dealers from over 45 countries, and the special curated and thematic sections proved to be once again a highlight. Returning for the third time was the curated Artist to Artist section, now sponsored by Tiffany & Co. Here, six established talents selected emerging voices for dynamic solo presentations. Standouts included Ana Segovia, selected by Abraham Cruzvillegas; Mexican-American artist René Treviño, chosen by Amy Sherald, and Indian artist T. Venkanna, nominated by Bharti Kher. 

Another breakout section was Echoes in the Present, a new area that explores the intergenerational dialogue between contemporary artists from Brazil, Africa, and their diasporas. Here, the entangled and complicated histories of Brazil and West Africa reverberated “to make us reconsider how things are remembered, how we engage with them in the present, and how they signal possible futures,” shares curator Jareh Das.

Below, see the highlight works.

1. Do Ho Suh at Lehmann Maupin

Korean artist Do Ho Suh was a highlight for Lehmann Maupin. Creating works that offer an intimate exploration of home, identity, and the fluid nature of memory in a globalized world, he is best known for his striking, full-scale architectural installations crafted from sheer, translucent fabric. These sculptures, which meticulously replicate every detail of places he has lived—from his childhood home in Seoul to apartments in New York and London—are designed to be disassembled and transported, reflecting the experience of migration and displacement. The gallery reported selling 15 pieces from his presentation, demonstrating strong collector demand for his work. His solo exhibition “Walk the House,” is currently on view at the nearby Tate Modern.

2. Tadáskía at Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel

Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, with galleries in Rio and São Paulo, anchors its Frieze London presentation with a focused selection of new work by the rising star Brazilian artist Tadáskía. Known for their evocative, large-scale paintings and textile installations, Tadáskía creates worlds where the body, landscape, and spirituality merge. Building on the significant momentum from their recent institutional debut at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the artist is a powerful new voice. On the first day, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel reported to sell half their booth of Tadáskía works, each piece priced at $45,000.

3.  Lauren Halsey at Gagosian

Gagosian is presenting a suite of new works by Los Angeles-based artist Lauren Halsey, whose practice transforms the everyday objects and architectural language of South Central L.A. into monuments of Black cultural history and future vision. Here, the booth displays a series of new friezes, with richly detailed surfaces. Following major installations such as her rooftop commission at The Met, this Frieze presentation further celebrates Halsey’s commitment to building a deeply personal, Afrofuturist landscape. The works all sold out early on the opening day.

4. Otobong Nkanga at Lisson

Lisson Gallery debuts a powerful, large-scale tapestry mural by Galerie Creative Mind Otobong Nkanga, an artist renowned for her geopoetic practice that maps the relationships between natural resources, the environment, and the human body. Working across tapestries, drawings, and installations, Nkanga addresses the entangled histories of resource extraction and global supply chains. Here, this monumental new piece, Cadence–While We Wait and Watch (2025), spanning 100 x 1050cm, is reminiscent of a complex map, utilizing Nkanga’s unique visual language to meditate on the resilience and vulnerability of ecosystems.

5. Naudline Pierre and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian at James Cohan

James Cohan brings two powerful, contrasting voices to Frieze, pairing the late Iranian master Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian with contemporary painter Naudline Pierre. Monir’s celebrated works are shimmering, complex mirror mosaics that translate traditional Persian geometry and craft into dazzling, light-refracting modernist abstractions. They are placed in dialogue are the deeply saturated, ethereal canvases of Pierre, where glowing female figures navigate mystical realms of transformation and intimacy. “There’s a beautiful and unexpected synergy between these two artists, exploring the sacred and the spiritual,” says a gallery director.

6.  Female Ceramic Artists at The Pit

Los Angeles gallery The Pit makes a strong Frieze London debut with the curated booth “Three Generations of Female California Ceramics.” The presentation is anchored by historical works from the estate of seminal Bay Area artist Viola Frey, whose monumental figures established a new trajectory for the medium. These are set in dialogue with new ceramics by contemporary artists Jennifer King (a former student of Betty Woodman) and Maryam Yousif. The three artists collectively explore themes of culture, power, and gender dynamics, revealing the enduring influence of California’s foundational ceramicists on today’s sculptural landscape.

7.  Studio Lenca at Carl Freedman Gallery

At Carl Freedman’s Frieze London presentation, the artist known as Studio Lenca (José Campos) debuts a striking series of brightly colored, vibrant papier mâché vases resting on different height plinths. Drawing on his personal history—fleeing El Salvador’s civil war and migrating to the U.S.—Campos’s work explores themes of visibility, identity, and social activism. Their imposing, weighty appearance dramatically belies their true construction of the material, their non-functional nature speaking to themes of loss of power.

8. Daniel Crews-Chubb at Timothy Taylor

Timothy Taylor gallery spotlights new work by the acclaimed British artist Daniel Crews-Chubb, presenting a selection of his intensely colored, textural paintings. The monumental canvases, known for their expressive, layered materiality that hover between abstraction and figuration, are presented alongside a significant development in the artist’s career: the debut of his sculptural practice. Translating his dynamic use of collage, impasto, and raw material into three dimensions, Crews-Chubb’s sculptures offer a thrilling physical extension of his painted world. Timothy Taylor sold almost all the works in the booth on opening day, with prices ranging from $94,000 to $127,000.

9. Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori and and Shoko Suzuki at Salon 94 and Karma

At Frieze Masters, don’t miss a bold collaboration between Salon 94 and Karma gallery featuring the extraordinary abstract paintings of Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori (Kaiadilt people). Her vibrant, expressive canvases use bold color and wet-on-wet brushwork to map the topography and cultural significance of her homeland, Bentinck Island, in Australia. Complementing this work are ceramics by Shoko Suzuki. The galleries reported selling six pieces from their joint booth, including Sally Gabori’s Dibirdibi Country for $800,000 and five of Suzuki’s ceramics.

10. Ancient Roman Vessels at Charles Ede

At Frieze Masters, London’s Charles Ede gallery presents a stunning display of ancient Roman glass vessels dating from the 1st to 4th centuries AD that have been propelled into the future with elegant fresh flower arrangements by British florist Shane Connolly. The stunning dialogue draws out the surprising modern relevance of these ancient works.